STAMP OF APPROVAL

Immigration reform could result in mandatory employment checks

Free database system that employers use to verify an applicant’s work status.

Concept for a national employment-verification system was the 1996 brainchild of Rep. Ken Calvert, R-Lake Elsinore.

In 1997, the Basic Pilot employment-check hotline was launched.

E-Verify is mandatory for federal agencies and their contractors. Voluntary for all other employers, except in Arizona and Mississippi.

3,634

Number of businesses in San Diego County that use E-Verify

Virtually everyone in the immigration debate agrees on the following point: This year, after decades of wrangling, lawmakers will require employers nationwide to verify whether an applicant is eligible to work.

The system would cover all residents, from U.S. citizens to immigrants with work permits to people living in this nation without permission.

Business and immigrant advocacy groups that have opposed the idea — they believe it would unduly burden companies — are resigned to it this time around because Congress and President Barack Obama back mandatory employment checks. Supporters of the proposal view it as a critical step in minimizing unauthorized immigration.

Plans being floated in Washington, D.C., include a system modeled after E-Verify, a free and largely voluntary program being used by 429,100 business locations nationwide — including 3,634 in San Diego County.

“E-Verify works, and it must be the starting point for any immigration-reform legislation along with border security,” said Rep. Ken Calvert, R-Lake Elsinore, whose legislation in 1996 created the nation’s first employment verification hotline.

The toll-free hotline, which began a year later, eventually led to the 2007 formation of the E-Verify computer database system.

“If we cut off the job magnet, that will end the incentive for people to cross the border illegally in the first place,” Calvert said. “It’s important ... that jobs go to American citizens and people who are here legally.”

People who have been wary of E-Verify are anxious to get the legislative specifics, such as how the program will be rolled out, potential penalties for violations and measures for maximizing accuracy.

“It’s inevitable we are moving in that direction, and I want to make sure it is imposed in a way that does not create an additional burden on small business,” said Ruben Barrales, who served as CEO of the San Diego Regional Chamber of Commerce until December.

Barrales worries that smaller companies will lose time and money trying to figure out compliance, that applicants will have a tough time correcting database errors affecting them, and that hiring for key jobs will be delayed if the verification process becomes complicated.

Calvert said not having such a program in place is also a burden on businesses.

“You hire someone and you put all this money and training and time in, and then have to discharge them because you find out they are not documented,” he said. “I’ve heard from employers who want to make sure they have a legal workforce.”